Reincarnation
by littledarkangelhippie
Summary: "Hanji has always understood things no one else does." (Levihan) AU


**A.N.****: I wrote this on tumblr and decided I'd share it with you guys, too.**

**I'm thinking might write another story, separate from this one, about reincarnation. Once I get my things together and get a better handle on life.**

**Disclaimer****: I do not own ****_Shingeki no Kyojin_.**

Hanji has always understood things no one else does.

Even as a child, clutching folded scraps of paper to her chest and blinking her wide eyes up at her father as he weaved some story up before her very eyes. She saw things no one else ever did, and when she mentioned them to her father, he always stared at her as if he were afraid for her.

As if something was wrong with her.

There are doodles she finds in old sketchbooks and diaries stuffed into dusty boxes in the attic of her childhood home of these creatures no child had any business drawing. Grotesque grins and hollow eyes, massive bodies, spindly limbs—eating these people that were tiny in their misshapen hands, red smeared across their mouths in crayon or paint—it made her stomach flip over a few times and her mouth go dry.

Some part of her whispers that it's only natural a child has their imagination, but a larger part knows that a child is only a child for so long, and these memories shouldn't actually be memories.

There are nights she still wakes up screaming, expecting to find blood covering the palms of her hands or a corpse lying across her lap—a shaky, uneasy sigh tearing out of her as she finds only the familiar darkness of her room and an empty space beside her.

Hanji isn't sure what this means, only that it isn't entirely normal.

Psychologists only go so far in helping her before she realizes they all think it's a delusion. Maybe it is, but she can't let herself believe that. It sucks away a better part of her and she isn't sure she wants that just yet. What she doesn't understand, she writes down in her notebook.

Soon enough, she has to buy another notebook. And then another. And then another. Until her bookcase is bulging with hidden thoughts and unsolved theories, secrets she isn't sure could be considered secrets.

It's all a figment of her imagination, so they can't actually be secrets, right?

Still, she holds them close to her chest. A part of her doesn't want her to tell anyone. She's fairly certain nobody would ever understand. The inner workings of her mind often allude even her, and she isn't sure that's entirely a good thing—most days, she has to lay herself flat on the ground and attempt to pull the strings of her thoughts back together before she loses herself again.

Most days, she forgets how to breathe.

When it's raining, she decides to take a walk. The taste of the air on her tongue is sweeter and she can almost close her eyes and pretend nothing at all is wrong with her. There are flickers overlapping her vision—crumbled buildings, debris, shattered windows, popped glass, still hands, broken spines, _something lost—_and it makes it hard to see. But the rain blurs it better than any pill can and she tips back her head to let it wash over her face, sliding her glasses atop her head to feel the cold droplets smooth over her eyelids and dribble into her lashes.

People scatter around her, searching for shelter from the downpour, and she doesn't have the voice to plead for them to _stop moving—_it reminds her of something she has no business remembering. Nobody screams, but she can hear it her ears anyway; whispers of something from long before.

Her father used to tell her she was old when she was born, and Hanji has never once questioned that.

Hanji has always understood things no one else does.

Her hair is drenched in rain now, and when she tips her head back down, streams of it streak down her face and throat and pool at her clavicle and soak her clothes. A dark figure stands across from her, indistinct and silhouetted; slight and narrow and a splinter of a person, all sharp edges and cold curves. She doesn't even think when she suddenly says, "I'm sorry," in a voice and tone she does and does not recognize.

For some reason, she knows that he'll cock his head a certain way and shift his shoulders another, that his thin brows will furrow deep and his dark eyes will squint at her in something much like annoyance except not—_except not, because you told me yourself—_and when his hand moves up to his hip she has this desperate need to fall into his arms.

_I know you_, that same voice she does and does not recognize insists within her mind, something clenching tight around her chest; barbed wire, split wood, trembling hands, _something lost—_she can't breathe for a few long seconds. _I know you, I know you, I know you_.

_I've been waiting for you_.

His hands are calloused and warm and they grab her none too gently, dragging her forward into an embrace that could be mistaken for a choke hold. Her body seems to want to bend her knees to tuck her chin into the curve of his shoulder, but the movement is awkward and out of place. "You're taller now," she mumbles, and she has no idea what she's saying or how she knows this. Her fingers twist into his shirt beneath his coat and she can feel these dips and curves, muscles she knows better than her own; she shouldn't, but she does. She's so damn scared, but for some reason she feels safer than she has in years.

"Don't ruin it," he mutters, and his voice shoots fire and ice down his spine; the raspy, crooked ridges sinking deep into her nerves.

She laughs shakily, and he seems to melt around her. When his lips brush her ear, a long breath leaves her, and she wants nothing more than to fall asleep in his arms. "I think I liked you better shorter."

"Shut up," he snaps, but for some reason she knows he wants to smile.

She's not sure why, but she's certain this has happened before—the soft press of his mouth against her temple, the closed fist about her hair, the hand drifting across the back, the fluttering in her stomach, the warmth spreading from her chest, how he mumbles very quietly in her hair how _quiet _things are when she's not around.

She's sure she's never met him before, but some part of her keeps singing _I know you, I know you, I know _and she can't quite silence it entirely. His dark eyes meet hers when he pulls back some, and they seem to _know—_what she's thinking, how she's feeling, who she is, where she's been, why she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night—

The world stops, right then, as her breath finally catches up to her.

"I missed you," she says, and suddenly she _knows _why she's always felt so misplaced and alone. He clicks into the places she couldn't fill alone, and this scares her in ways that don't make any sense.

She's seen those eyes before, in one dream or another—every night, she catches glimpses of them, looking at her as if she's the only reason there is to live for. It all rushes back to her, all at once, and she has to grit her teeth at the force of it; it threatens to rip her apart.

~~...~~X~~...~~

Fire everywhere, scattered slabs of stone and splintered wood and shattered glass and screaming, everywhere, everywhere—_I have to find Levi, where's Levi, he was just here, I swear—_she tries to slick her hair back from her eyes but only smears the blood on her hands across her face; it sticks to her lashes and lips and burns her own flesh. She's afraid, running through the streets, tearing at the harnesses clinging tight to her body—_Hanji Zoe is an intelligent woman; she understands things no one else does and this is what makes her so valuable—_

The reason why Hanji Zoe already knows she's going to die and there's not a single hope in the world that will save her from her fate. The harnesses fall around her ankles, strewn behind her, as she sprints down narrow alleyways and between tall clusters of what looked like human appendages and excrement. Around her the world is falling to hell and she knows the terrible trembling of the earth beneath her means they've spotted her but she can't quite bring herself to care, because—_because Levi's still out there and I can't leave him behind—_so she keeps running, running, running until her heart is fit to burst from her ribcage and her lungs are burning.

When she finds him, he's propped against the wall, still clutching a blade in his fist; he'd never go down without a fight, the idiot. She falls to her knees beside him, laughs in a sick mixture between relief and fear, and wraps him up in her arms. He turns his face into the crook of her neck to kiss her throat. "About fucking time you got here," he mutters, and the words are garbled and slurred and Hanji Zoe wishes they had more time.

The things she would do for just a little more time. "Lost track of you for a minute there, shorty," she mumbled into his hair, ink black strands sticking to her skin in his sweat. Under normal circumstances, he would've shoved her away to clean himself up, emotional moment be damned.

Hanji Zoe thinks, perhaps, if there had been such a thing as a second life she wouldn't change him for the world.

But that was just wishful thinking.

"Don't ruin it," he sighs, and his hands slide limply down to his sides, fingers open toward the sky.

In another life, perhaps, Hanji Zoe might've had a little more time to tell him she loves him.

~~...~~X~~...~~

He folds her up in his arms under the shelter of an overhanging rooftop, sitting against the wall, watching the rain pour down relentlessly. She mentions those things she sees that no one else ever does, those memories that aren't supposed to be memories, and he rests his chin atop her head.

"I see them, too," he says, and she can hear his heart beating strong beneath her ear, shuts her eyes and knows she's never felt safer.

Hanji doesn't feel alone anymore.

~~...~~X~~...~~

**A.N.****: Sorry if that ended a bit abruptly, I didn't want to over do it.**

**Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think. Review please.**


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